Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages [Anglais] [Broché]

In 12th-century Toledo, in Spain, a group of Christian monks, Jewish sages and Muslim teachers gathered to study a new translation of Aristotle's De Anima (On the Soul). In Rubenstein's dazzling historical narrative, this moment represents both the tremendous influence of Aristotle on these three religions and the culmination of the medieval rediscovery of his writings. In the fourth century B.C., Aristotle fashioned a new system of philosophy, focusing on the material world, whose operations he explained by a series of causes. As Rubenstein (When Jesus Became God) explains, in the second and third centuries A.D., Western Christian scholars suppressed Aristotle's teachings, believing that his emphasis on reason and the physical world challenged their doctrines of faith and God's supernatural power. By the seventh century, Muslims had begun to discover Aristotle's writings. Islamic thinkers such as Avicenna and Averroes, in the 11th and 12 centuries, embraced Aristotle's rationalist philosophy and principles of logic. Christian theologians rediscovered Aristotle through the commentaries of the monk Boethius, who argued in the sixth century that reason and understanding were essential elements of faith. There resulted a tremendous ferment in the study of Aristotle in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, culminating in the work of Thomas Aquinas, who used Aristotle's notion of an Unmoved Mover and First Cause to construct his arguments for God's existence. Aquinas, too, argued that reason was a necessary component of faith's ability to understand God and the world. Although the book purports to trace Aristotle's influence on Christianity, Islam and Judaism, it devotes more attention to Christianity. Even so, Rubenstein's lively prose, his lucid insights and his crystal-clear historical analyses make this a first-rate study in the history of ideas.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

Adult/High School--This is a challenging, intricate book for mature students who are fascinated by the paradox of the Middle Ages: How was the knowledge of Greece and Rome lost, and how was it found again? To set the scene, Rubenstein provides an introduction to the lives and works of Plato and Aristotle, and to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. He then shifts his focus to the year 1136, when a group of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars working together in Toledo began translating the philosopher's forgotten works. The dissemination of those translations sent shock waves through Europe as religious leaders tried to reconcile Aristotle's scientific theories with Church doctrine. The struggles between secular rulers and the Church hierarchy, and the development of the medieval universities, are presented with rich detail and feeling. The author shows readers the similarities between those conflicts and the Darwinist/creationist clashes. Students researching topics on the Middle Ages will find this title a useful reference source. Multiple pages are devoted to the lives and works of important figures, such as Abelard, Aquinas, and Innocent II, but the author does not neglect the less well known, such as William of Ockham or Siger de Brambant. Religious orders, heretical movements, and philosophical works are equally well covered. This is a compelling account of how the rediscovery of the writings of Aristotle changed the way the Western world looked at humans, God, and nature.--Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

Rubinstein's background as a professor of conflict resolution must have come in handy as he was crafting this tale of one of history's biggest conflagrations: the introduction of Aristotle's philosophy to the Churchbound Europe of the Middle Ages.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

*Starred Review* In today's sterile disputes between dogmatic religionists and chop-logic rationalists, political scientist Rubenstein sees evidence of cultural amnesia: we have forgotten how the Aristotelian thinkers of the late middle ages once reconciled faith with reason. To reverse this amnesia, Rubenstein resurrects the complex personalities who first delved into the treasure trove of Aristotelian manuscripts made available to European scholars by the Spanish reconquest of Toledo in the late fifteenth century. Without wearying general readers with excessive detail, Rubenstein chronicles the daring work that reshaped Aristotelian philosophy into a cogent Catholic synthesis of metaphysics, morality, and science--a synthesis dispelling the doubts of the pious and silencing the sophistry of the heretic. But the Christian-Aristotelian synthesis proved volatile: a canny historical sleuth, Rubenstein exposes the political calculations behind papal strategies for managing the Aristotelian revolution, and he probes the private ambitions of the incendiary scholars who subverted or defied these strategies. Rubenstein mourns the eclipse of Aristotle and the consequent divorce of religion and reason, which he blames for the vacuity of modern debates that pit superstition against desiccation. Perhaps like manuscripts recovered long ago in Toledo, Rubenstein's book will rekindle interest in a thinker who promises wholeness. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

"Christianity's 'rediscovery' of Aristotle through Muslim Spain...challenges gennerations today to reclaim the interrelatedness of reason, science and religion.

"Relevant and captivating."

"A compelling account of how the rediscovery of Aristotle changed the way the Weestern world looked at humans, God, nature."

"Relevant and captivating." --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

Europe was in the long slumber of the Middle Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten, until a group of twelfth-century scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle. His ideas spread like wildfire across Europe, offering the scientific view that the natural world, including the soul of man, was a proper subject of study. The rediscovery of these ancient ideas sparked riots and heresy trials, caused major upheavals in the Catholic Church, and also set the stage for today's rift between reason and religion.

In Aristotle's Children, Richard Rubenstein transports us back in history, rendering the controversies of the Middle Ages lively and accessible-and allowing us to understand the philosophical ideas that are fundamental to modern thought.

Richard E. Rubenstein, a professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at George Mason University, is the author of When Jesus Became God. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.